Tuesday, December 20, 2011

What do you do with time?


What do you do with time? Some divide, fill, spend,save and squander time.The monks have their Hours that divide the day. Homeschoolers have the Rule of Six which I modified slightly and adopted for my daily activities-Books, PIES (Philanthropy with time and hands, Imaginative play (walk in the outdoors),Encounters with beauty ( art, music, and nature), Silence (prayer) ), and Ideas to ponder and create.
From the Summer by John Ashbery (2nd stanza of 6)
“For the time being the shadow is ample
And hardly seen, divided among the twigs of a tree,
The trees of a forest, just as life is divided up
Between you and me, and among all the others out there.”
Ideas to ponder come while I am reading, during play or walk. Prayer happens while I’m walking or listening to music. After all, in the end, life itself is a prayer.
I keep a stack of books at the bedside.Which book gets the most attention is what interest me most at the moment. It can get interrupted if I bring home a new book that seems so different, with simple or complex stories that entrance. 
Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina,and the Little Prince remain my favorite books.I’m fascinated by the stories of Jorge Luis Borges.
This month I’m reading spiritual books and one of them is Hermits by Peter France with anecdotes and insights of solitude. “Of the depth of their spiritual experience they had little to say:but their every action showed a standard of values that turns the world upside down. It was their humility, their gentleness, their heart breaking courtesy that was the seal of their sanctity to their contemporaries, far beyond abstinence, miracle or sign.”
Poetry ranges from T.S.Eliot to John Ashbery
My music varies but tilts to classical. I always like Beethoven since I was in school. Schubert’s Ave Maria, Meditation from “Thais” and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor move me whenever I hear them. I listen often to Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.  With singers I often listen to Lara Fabian,Loreena McKennit and Sarah Brightman.
Recently I’m attracted to photography. I’m trying to learn how to take pictures.
There are other things, like chess, which I will always like and forever play. And I will always dream to be near the sea .
2nd stanza of 6  from As One Put Drunk into the Packet-Boat by John Ashbery
“So this was all, but obscurely
I felt the stirrings of new breath in the pages
Which all winter long had smelled like an old catalogue.
New sentences were starting up. But the summer
Was well along, not yet past the mid-point
But full and dark with the promise of that fullness,
That time when one can no longer wander away
And even the least attentive fall silent
To watch the thing that is prepared to happen.”

2 comments:

rhapsodyinbooks said...

I like your list very much. I'm afraid I'd fall much more into the category of divide, fill, spend, save, and squander. I've been trying to think about that though, perhaps to modify my behavior. Life is so short. I wonder if I could adopt the monestary hours method to discipline my time more... Thank you for the thought-provoking piece!

edgar said...

Rhapsodyinbooks-There are some who wisely manage their time very well.I find the Rule of Six useful to fill my time.Thank you for comments.